WOW!

Busy, busy, busy

Yeah, for a girl who has no job and no home I seem to be busy a lot. I guess I don’t mind but I am finding it’s nonstop. I love it and don’t all in the same breath, it’s just a bit crazy! And you know with the holidays coming fast and furious it will get even worse. I’m up for it though!

But just so ya know as the temperatures cool off you will see less of me out and about. I just do not care to be out and about after the sun goes down. I just prefer to snuggle up with a book, some hot tea and stay in. I am one who does not like to be cold, I do not mind being out in the fresh crisp air but I do not want to be out in the cold, I just don’t. I do not like my hands to get cold, I do not it when my nose gets cold and I certainly do not like my feel to be cold! Sometimes when my feet get cold they go numb and it is such an uncomfortable feeling. So I will be avoiding situations where I might have to be cold!

Thursday Thoughts!

Oh, I am really feeling the travel effects (read that, weight gain) from the Vegas trip. I know I really didn’t need that yummy coconut cake for breakfast (and late night snack)! Nor should I have had all the wonderful delicious orange cranberry scones from Trader Joe’s but they were good. I also probably should have only gone to In & Out Burger once…not, well let’s just not mention how many times I went! And then there was the Capriotti’s trips (thanks Frizzy), yeah, about them, they were AWESOME! I loved each every sandwich I had there. I was also thrilled to be able to have Chipotle not once but twice, did I mention I love their guac! Well I do and I certainly enjoyed it BOTH times I went! This is not to mention the crepe place at the Bellogio (thanks again friend Frizzy!) Anyway, what’s done is done…I am back to trying to keep to my more strict eating routine, many, many veggies, fruit and little meat. I hope it kicks in cause I can feel the 5#s that found their way to my mid section. I know, I know it’s only 5#s but at my height and build it’s there and I know it and I really need to ditch it.  That’s my goal along with NOT gaining more over the next several weeks as we begin the descent into the holidays.

Thoughts:

Costa Rica for our mid-tour???

Roasted cauliflower is awesome!

I think I need a lil’blue fix, I miss that girl!

I do not know what is in the air but I’m sneezing!

MiB will possible come stateside on TDY, ME TOO!!!

I’m back in the Midwest!

I am thrilled to be back in the area with the family for the next several weeks. The big thing on my agenda is the 1930 CLASSIC birthday party for my dad. He will be 80 on 8 November so we are getting together to have a little celebration the weekend of his birthday. Due to circumstances beyond my control (and I guess lack of communication) lil blue will not be able to attend; ( this makes me sad but the party must go on. At present he is unaware of the celebration and no it is not a surprise party we have just really not told him about it…in due time he will be informed or find out on his own…that may be interesting, I just hope he doesn’t refuse to attend!

So there is not really a theme so to speak but we will focus on things from the year he was born. Some neat food items made their appearance in 1930! The Snickers Bar was introduced along with Zagnut candy bars. Wonder started slicing their bread and Jiffy biscuit mix hit store shelves as well as Hostess Twinkie!  Then there are some historical events that we will make note of and we will have a simple cake and punch come and go reception along with some memory sharing and making. It should be a wonderful good day! I will keep you informed of progress and day of happenings!

Have a great Monday, I am!

the Gracious Family

Many of you know about our short stint of basement living...this was a week ago today after my reunion stay with that family on my visit out to Vegas. We had a wonderful few days together, it was incredible to me how much the girls have grown, how easy we all fell back into an easy routine together. It was a soooo good to see them!

 The whole family with me!

The girls and I!

GRAND CANYON, oh my!

 WOW, there are really no adequate words to describe the views I saw, it was AMAZING, such a vast expanse, so very beautiful, so extremely desolate, so very sparse, yet again, it was gorgeous and I am so thrilled to have finally experienced it.

We did our canyon viewing on the West side, it was closest to Vegas and it is home to the somewhat famous "SkyWalk". Yes, we did go out on the skywalk, it was neat, not as cool as I thought it would be nor near as scary as some made it sound...I did not at all get that funny stomach feeling, I did not get lightheaded, queasy or anything else. I took it all in. I looked, I marveled, I stared, I wondered, I experienced it fully. It was a bit of a cool, cloudy, damp day and so they had mats on on the walk which did hamper the view somewhat but not enough to ruin it. We went out on the walk when there was a clearing in the clouds so it was partly sunny during our time on the walk, the only time it was sunny while we were at the canyon. I am so glad we went ahead and went out when we did while the sun was shining. One of the guides commented that the view of the canyon is more spectacular when there is a bit of cloud cover as you can see the depth and beauty more then when it is full sunlight as there is more glare to contend with. I hope she was saying that in truth and not to make all of us feel better since it was a cloudy day!  The skywalk area is called Eagle's Point.

The next stop on the tour was Guano Point, it was another amazing view...again, there are really no words to describe this.

 

We ended our evening with Rita...she was good and we certainly had many laughs, we were amazed at the small venue and what great seats we got just hours before the show!We did not pre-buy since we were not sure what time we would make it back from the canyon. What a way to end our trip! Fly out tomorrow afternoon!

Thursday Thoughts!

I am not sure but I do not think Vegas is the town for me...it's not that it is not a good town just not my kind of town. I have enjoyed seeing it, loved the people watching, have enjoyed the shows on and off the stage :), got to see friends and family and overall had a nice time but I will be okay if I don't make it back...NO offense to those who love the town or the Vegas Chamber of Commerce!

Thoughts:

• I like my space...
• I still am not a dog lover
• I don't like cigarette smoke
• I am a saver not a gambler thankyouverymuch!

As far as our day went we took it pretty easy and shopped and puttered around town on our own. I amazingly enough found black shoes that I really like (which I have been in search of FOREVER, well, okay more like 6 months) and Levi's. so it was a really good shopping day for me!!!

We ended by seeing the TI Pirate Show and watching the Bellagio dancing waters.

That Dam Tour

After a short drive to Boulder City we headed on to the Hoover Dam. I thought it was a good dam tour...good thing since the man who tore my tour ticket insisted that I must have a good dam tour!  We parked on the AZ side, cause there is FREE parking there and hiked in.  This was okay because my exercise routine has been lacking since I got here. We walked right in bought two tickets with a military discount, thankyouverymuch, and off we went to the movies where there was no popcorn but it was still good!

 

I will say it was amazing to see! 

Lotsa, lotsa concrete!

Knowing it was completed under the allotted construction time and is so very solid was incredible. Knowing that they did not use computers, laser sites and that new fangledangle stuff was cool too; they did it the old fashioned way. This dam is the kind of solid built to last kind of construction! I know it is cliche but it is so very true, they just don't build things like this anymore; this thing is going to be around for a long time to come! I also learned it was not built to generate electricity, which it does a might fine job at, it was actually built to help irrigate the food that is grown around this area. I was educated on this trip :) and I remembered enough of it to post this morning!

 That bridge right there is what I thought we were going to get to drive on since they had the "official opening" on Sunday, yeah, NO, it was not yet open to the public...so why did they have the "official opening" if it in fact is NOT open? I do not know! I can tell you I will most likely never return to go over it, one trip here will do it for me.

 This was a must have picture...I am from a town called Nevada, not the state of Nevada. We do not pronounce our town the same as the state either, weird, I know but that is my town :) We are Ne VA dah as in a long sound and the state has the short a sound on the middle a.

We ended the evening by seeing Mystere at Treasure Island, amazing! But I think I would like O even better!

LAS VEGAS!!!!

The pictures speak for themselves...

In addition to going to "the SIGN" we also poked around the Venetian, took a stroll through CityCenter and ended up at Battista's for dinner. Now I hate to say it was not a good place to dine but I can say there are a bunch of other places to dine and I would choose one of those over this one...is that diplomatic enough from someone who has lived in Italy and knows that a cappuccino is not hot chocolate ??? ; /

My other contention with this establishment is that it was an "all inclusive" menu that did not suit most of our party of 11 (or others from the overheard table conversations I caught snatches of ) and had we been a bit more informed we would have chosen another venue. Live and learn, I learned and you will not see me back here...

Meeting up and the Strip...

 Lunch with DCC-In & Out of course!

 Cuteness for sure!

After a morning of poking around on our own and doing some shopping we headed on down to the strip to just hang out and explore. We hit the M&M store, Coca Cola shop, New York New York, Bellagio, and some I do not remember...

We ended the evening with the Penn and Teller show at the Rio.

Freemont Street!

 mySherry on Freemont Street

 Golden Nugget

 Bumper Stickers ...they said it all...and more!

 Win! WIN! Win!

 Play it girl! 

I did finally give it a go!

The pictures speak for themselves...we made a stroll down Freemont St and what a treat for the eyes, I saw Spiderman, Kiss, Johnny Depp, Playboy Bunnies, Chuckie, Freddie Kreugar, Vegas Showgirls, Brandi and Elvis x 20! The people were of all sorts! We got some inner chuckles at all we saw and sometimes we outrighted laughed out loud...you just couldn't help yourself! It was all good!

In and Out Burger - Creech

The long awaited trip to In and Out Burger is over…yes, it was worth the wait. While some said it was to die for, others said it was just a run of the mill burger joint and others scoffed at it being any good at all. I thought it was very tasty. Now I will say that I think it is no match for the White Grill in my home town but then again I think they fall into two totally different categories...so I would definitely go back to the In and Out Burger place again and next time I would order my burger "animal style"!

 Taking the first bite of my cheeseburger with grilled onions, mustard and pickles!

 One thing I did think was incredibly uber coolio was that the cups and burger wrapper had Bible verses on them, now how cool is that? For me, super cool!

After our In and Out lunch we headed northwest about 40 miles to a little base that used to be called Indian Springs but now it is called Creech. Lest you think I just had the wonderlust, cause I did not, (well, okay, I do but that was not the case in this instance) I was on a mission and well, I failed...yeah, I know. It was all about these friends in AL who had been stationed there back in the day and they loved him so very much that they planted a tree in his honor, I was on a mission to find it... and unless I missed it, (which I think I did not) it is no longer there. Sadly, his tree is gone or possibly still there and no longer marked cause I did not find any tree with his marker!

 Meet the newest "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" member!  Her tooth has been loose for days and today she was brave beyond measure and yanked it out all by herself! WooHoo, isn't a toothless child just the cutest thing?

 My afternoon entertainment was the oldest and youngest dancing! Too cute!

Tomorrow mySherry arrives and we begin the touristy part of the trip!

CHEESECAKE Thoughts!

Oh my, did we do a yummy or what? We headed down to the strip to do a little dessert trip. Now I know there are lots of other choices rather then the Cheesecake Factory but you have to understand the big girls really, really like cheesecake so this was a perfect choice for us. Of course, that was the EASY part choosing to go there! The hard part came when I had to make the choice for the type of cheesecake I wanted. Oh dear, that was so, so, so hard. I wanted to get the red velvet since I so love cream cheese frosting, but I also very much wanted the blueberry, and of course I kind of wanted to venture out and try the chocolate chip cookie dough or the Dutch apple caramel streusel one. See how tough it was?

Anyway, here’s what happened, I got the red velvet! It was oh so yummy, I brought some home to have for breakfast tomorrow. NOT another piece, I just did not devour my entire piece today, I savored it and then I saved some for another time!

 Red Velvet Cheesecake!

Everyone enjoyed our tasty morsels and certainly got our cheesecake fix, I’m telling you it was divine : )

Before we began our adventure to the strip we had ballet class, yes, really! It was so cute to watch the middle one in class, so serious this one is! Determination oozed all around her as she ever so elegantly and so very gracefully moved just as her instructor did never missing a beat.

The BONUS for today was while we were strolling the mall inside Caesar's Palace we saw Pete Rose...not all that exciting I know, but a sort of famous person nonetheless that we saw. I think he was doing some sort of book signing or something.

 

He is NOT the guy in red but the guy sitting behind the counter with the ball hat on!

Thursday Thoughts:

• I love early nonstop flights!

• It’s rather warm here in Vegas…

• Skype is still amazing to me!

I'm here...

Wow, no pictures yet, is a shock I am sure but I have arrived and I wanted you to know!

Okay, I know it's VEGAS people but I didn't not expect slot machines absolutely everywhere I went...that was actually quite the unexpected.  But anyhow, I am enjoying my time with our gracious friends and their three little girls (who are actually not as little as they were)!

Good night!

Update

I tried to check out the quilt shop today but they were not open, they did not open til 12:30 P.M. which is fine but I was out and doing my errands this morning and wanted to stop then...so, unfortunately I will not be able to get in there and check it out before I leave tomorrow.

Tomorrow I head out west...looking forward to it! More from the west in a few days!

Quilt Shop right here :)

I was looking for the shoe repair shop…it’s not there anymore; however, while wandering around the town square in my hometown to make sure it was in fact gone and not just relocated I found a quilt shop on one of the side streets. I know, I know, who knew! I sure didn’t but now I do. I will now make it a point to get back by there and check it out. I hope it is a real hidden treasure!

 

I noticed some other things on and around the square that I had not noticed since I have been back in these parts. I guess I really should just take an afternoon or morning and reacquaint myself with those still in business on the square. In my younger days I have many fond memories of shopping “uptown” as we used to call it. There was a great drug store that had THE best cokes in town. We also had a couple of neat clothing stores, I mostly remember Mode O Day, but there were others such as Edmiston’s, Haden’s and one on the southeast corner that I no longer remember the name of. We also had a couple of five and dimes; I remember riding my bike to Ben Franklin or TG&Y to get candy. I usually got bottle caps, wax lips or wacky wafers.  The two pharmacies’ that used to be on the square are gone. I loved going there as they were gift shops as well. One is still operating just no longer on the square. Thomas’s used to be the place to go to get birthday gifts when I was growing up. It always smelled so good in there as they sold candles and perfume as well.

The FOX Theater used to be uptown as well; it is now the CCPA theatre. Earlier in the summer I was able to see a local play there. They have done a nice job revamping it and it seems like such a good fit the local community group to have it.  The jewelry store where I got my first “real” watch is no longer there, but the one my wedding ring came from is and I still regularly visit there when in town.  The shoe store where my first Bass sandals came from is still open but much smaller then years ago. The barbershop where I would accompany my dad to get his haircut is still open. Not only is that barbershop still open, it is still only $2.50 to get your haircut and if you are a kid I understand you still get a piece of bubblegum when you leave. Some things never change I suppose, while others are always changing!

I will hopefully have a good report after I am able to visit the quilt shop…not sure I will make it in before I leave for Vegas or not, so stay tuned!

Thursday Thoughts...

I think Fall has arrived, I actually fear that it may have gone a little too quickly into the season instead of ease in, Sunday night we had a frost, I needed another blanket on the bed, I am not sure if this will be the trend for this year but we are having unseasonably cool temperatures. I will not complain, I cannot cause this is my favorite season. I love all the colors and scents of this time of year. I am sooooo ready for a big ‘ole pot of veggie soup. I am ready to make soup often with whatever we have on hand I love that kind of weather. I am ready for cornbread, biscuits, crusty bread, bread sticks and crackers to accompany my soups and stews. Course I am NOT ready for the poundage that may accompany this way of eating :/ but I hope to continue to get my exercise in despite the falling temps!

Thoughts:

Love the crisp air

It’s hot tea weather again!

Oatmeal for lunch is awesome!

Enjoying the local sporting events

I’ll be in doing the Vegas trip next week!

Happy Birthday FROG!

 

 This is the birthday FROG...

This evening I was invited to a birthday celebration for the FROG...it was a nice time.  The food was extremely yummy, the FROG himself smoked the meat and he also made a pretty darn good cabbage casserole, (though I must say, it really, really stunk up the house!) KR brought baked beans and cheesy taters and there was also some fresh corn off the cob. And let's not forget to mention the homemade German chocolate cake which was totally over the top good. I will also admit that I am still miserable right this minute from eating so much!

The cake that was nearly consumed by the fire and that is the cake baker!

The birthday FROG blowing out the candles!

Removing the wax cause no one wants wax in the cake!

After the really good meal we got down to some cards...it was a pretty low key game of spades in which my partner and I did not whip up on the birthday FROG and his partner cause we are just nice that way, LOL!

YES!

I am thrilled that I said yes to my MIB 26 years ago today when he ask me to marry him…I know he thinks I have been the one to give up so much and endure many things in this USAF marriage but I know he has been a solid, stand up guy and done the same for me just in different arenas. After all, I did go back to finish school once we were married, then the last couple semesters we had LilBlue. He always supported me in that and did whatever he could to facilitate picking up or dropping off LilBlue in those days if he was in town. I think he has been a great son-in-law, uncle, brother in law to those on my side of the family, taking “hits” for the team, making time to do the fun and not so fun, making sure we were inclusive in family events, going our separate ways when necessary to get all the visits in, taking LilBlue for our “chick trips” and being a driver or picker upper when asked. He rarely says no when it comes to the family. We have always lived away and he always tries to make sure we take some of our leave seeing family.

I know our marriage is solid and take comfort in that when I think of his being gone, I don’t think I would hold up so well if I had concerns about our marriage. It is good to be able to trust, to feel loved from afar, and to know that I have a man who loves me.

As I have said every year since he ask, YES, I would do it all over again beyond a shadow of a doubt and YES, I am still lovin’ being Mrs. Blue and look forward to many, many, many more years to come together doing all the things we love to do but mainly just be together.

Weekend Project

Our challenge:

 

Replace the core of the door due to moisture intrusion.

It was time to bring out the tool belt and do a little DIY at Papa Smurf’s. The front door, still under warranty, needed the core replaced. The weather was perfect for such a project and since “the Littles” would not be in residence we seized the moment and got started. Lest you think this was an easy task let me assure you it was not.  In fact, IMO, I think it might have been easier to just buy a new door…but we persevered and we now have the door back up.

 

 

We took apart, put back together, we unscrewed and re-screwed and in the midst we drilled holes, measured, pried and pushed, re-measured and took time to have lunch at DQ. Chicken strip lunch basket with malts, (chocolate for me, strawberry for dad). It was a good day! The bottom rubber still needs to be changed out but it is back up and fully functional. I think, okay, I know there may have been a few sore muscles but we completed another project from the list….I think there are only 462 left :/

You may want to start calling me Handy Manny :) And yeah, I KNOW it looks like my dad did all the work, but someone had to get the pictures ya know!